Burning memories: Man seeks owner of films found on tragic night

For more than 27 years, Mel Gomez has carried around a silver metal box and disturbing memories of the tragic night on which he found it - May 11, 1970.

A huge tornado - so big that some people thought there were actually two twisters - ravaged Lubbock that night, leaving 26 people dead and hundreds injured.

It was the night Gomez watched the split-second demolition of his gas station at the corner of Fourth Street and Avenue H, now Buddy Holly Avenue. Gomez survived without visible injury, but the tornado ripped apart his life. His voice still trembles as he recalls seeing the mangled buildings and the bodies in the debris.

Yet amid the personal losses of the night, Gomez made one small discovery - the silver metal box containing seven 8 millimeter home movies.

"The gutters were full and I saw this container come floating down," the 58-year-old transmission mechanic recalled. "I went out and picked it up. It's been with me ever since."

Although the remembrances of that night will always be with him, Gomez wants to return the box. So, after years of thinking about finding the owner, he made a New Year's resolution to do something he wanted to do a long time ago.

"These are somebody's memories - good memories," said Gomez, who for the past 26 years has lived in San Jose, Calif., where he owns a transmission repair shop.

"I've been thinking about this for a long time, and I am sure that there is someone out there that needs to have these," he said. "It has always bothered me. How did this happen? I've always wondered about those people. Did they make it?"

If he can find the owner, Gomez said the first thing he wants to do is apologize for taking so long to return the films. Then he wants to give back the silver metal box that has been with him for so long.

Returning the box also may help Gomez move on with what he calls his new life. The film has been a constant reminder of the tragedy he tried to leave behind when he left Lubbock about a year after the disaster.

The curious image of the metal box in the gutter is just one frame in reels of memories that still play on the screen in Gomez's mind.

It was a clear day when Gomez went to work on that Mother's Day, but by 8 p.m. severe weather reports began to come in from counties west of Lubbock. Soon, the clouds turned dark as the storm approached the city.

"I will never forget it," said Gomez. "It was a quarter 'til 10 (9:46 p.m. according to official reports) and I was working at my station. It started raining hard and then I heard a roar."

Gomez glanced at the sky, where he saw the huge cloud bearing down on Central Lubbock.

"The next thing I knew there was a house in front of my pumps," he said. "I don't know where it came from, but (the tornado) sat it down right out there.

"(And) this guy was being pushed by the wind. He was fighting it, but it did no good. He went by so fast."

Gomez never saw the man again.

"After the roar and the first hit, there was a calm for like five seconds," he said. "Then it hit again. And this time the roof went up."

One memory Gomez said will always haunt him is that of a woman he found moments after the storm wiped out downtown Lubbock.

"She came walking down the street," he said as his voice choked. "I think she was dazed or in shock.

"I'll never forget her. She was pregnant and she was totally nude. It looked like her clothes had been blown right off of her, and she was cut from her head to her legs."

Rummaging through the rubble of what had been his service station, Gomez found a pair of coveralls and clothed the woman and remained with her until help arrived.

"Someone came and took her away," he said. "I think it must have been a policeman who put her in a car and drove away."

Gomez didn't get the woman's name and never heard about her or her baby again.

"That's the other thing I would like to know," he said. "I'd like to know about that woman. I can see her there and would like to know what happened."

Gomez spent much of the night collecting what he could from the rubble of his gas station. When he went home in the early morning hours of May 12, he took the silver metal box with him.

"The films inside were wet, but they dried out," he said.

Later Gomez would run the films through his home movie projector, hoping to identify the people so he could return the movies.

"There were several elderly people who were praying around a table," he said. "There were children with them and they were around a table like they were eating Thanksgiving. Then there is a scene in which you can see open country like out on a farm or something. There also are scenes of the kids swinging in a swing and having a good time."

Another scene shows a man coming out of a field with a plow, Gomez said. Around him are several children.

"It's an old gentleman who probably isn't around anymore, but maybe he has grandkids that need to have these films."

But not all the scenes are happy. There is footage of damage apparently done by another tornado, perhaps years earlier in a neighboring rural community. There are smashed 50s-era cars, leveled buildings and houses flooded above their windows.

After the Lubbock tornado, Gomez was never able to put the life he had known back together. He opened another station on the other side of town, but he never felt comfortable.

"It was just never the same," he said.

The 30-year-old man's marriage began to splinter and he couldn't shake the memories of what he had seen that night.

"When my wife and I separated, I headed out of town," he said. "I was headed for Alaska to start a new life."

Along the way, he stopped in San Jose, Calif., and decided to stay.

"I started a new life here," he said. "I got a job and started a new family."

But once in a while he'd open up the silver box and take another look at the films - someone else's memories found on a tragic night.

"I've always known I need to return these," he said. "I hope that I can."